Upgrading Pironman 5 MAX from PCIe 2.0 to 3.0 possible?

Accessories for Raspberry Pi and Arduino
1

Hi everyone,

this week i started my first project with raspberry pi 5 and an pironman 5 max case and just waiting for my SSD to arrive, so i can start.

Meanwhile, i was reading into this topic and found out, that the Pironman 5 Max HAT only supports PCIe 2.0, which would be fine, but i was wondering if I can upgrade it to 3.0 somehow. Maybe it’s worth mentioning, that i don’t plan to use the second M.2 slot right now, since prices are a bit high… but maybe later want to do something with the Hailo-8 or setup a raid system.

  • Did any of you experiment with this case and different HATs?
  • Or did anyone found a workaround to activate and effectively use PCIe 3.0 with this HAT?
  • Are you recommending to use it at all or just stick to the slower 2.0 variant, to be safe?

I am planning to run this Pi as Media- and Gaming-Server and might put some other stuff on it, just to experiement with it.

My System:

  • Board: Raspberry Pi 5 16GB
  • Case: Prionman 5 MAX
  • SSD: 1x Samsung 990 Evo Plus 2TB
  • Power: Orig. R.Pi 27W USB-C Power Supply [EU-Plug]
  • Other: no extras attached yet

I’m looking forward to hear from you! :slight_smile:

Greetings
MB

1 Like
2

Because it uses a PCIe 2 switch, the answer is no. To get speed, I run the os on a USB-3 slot with SSD and application on non-max nvme. You may be able to retro fit the single nvme board.

3

The built-in HAT of the Pironman 5 MAX only supports PCIe 2.0. This is a limitation at the hardware design level — the PCIe version is determined by the signal traces and the interface chip (if present) on the HAT, and cannot be bypassed through software upgrades.

4

I see, thank you for your quick answers.

So, if i wanted to upgrade to PCIe 3.0 i would need to find another HAT, that fits inside the Pironman5MAX housing, right?
Did anyone already tried this and has a recommendation?

The single-port NVME HAT, that is used int he original Pironman5 looks like it could fit, but I’m not sure about the power supply and space within the housing.

5

Are these slots USB 3.1 or 3.2? if it’s 3.1 i don’t see any advantage, since it’s also ~500mb/s, and it would block one of my ports (which is ok for now, but maybe i need it later for other things).

Yesterday i started up the Pi the first time with my new M.2 SSD (Samsung 990 Evo Plus) and it works great. Hopefully today i find the time to run some speed-tests, but for now i’m just glad i didn’t run into any errors and boot is super fast :slight_smile:

6

Yes. The NVMe PIP of the standard edition Pironman 5 case supports Gen 3, but it may not be installable in the Max case due to structural differences.